…ergh.

Since the end of the DS era, there hasn’t been a proper ‘Castlevania’ game. Mirror of Fate is terrible, and both of the Lords of Shadows games lack both the approach and ‘feel’ of Castlevania as a series. They are not ‘bad’ games–but they are not Castlevania games, either.

The indie devs, and the old-school creators who have broken away to start anew, are where the future of ‘real’ gaming is right now. I hope they succeed, even if I loathe the kickstarters that they all inevitably create.

While I did enjoy the GBA games, they never seemed to capture the grandeur that seemed to make SotN so special. Maybe it’s the nostalgia goggles effect. But from Circle of the Moon on, I just didn’t enjoy myself as much. when I got ahold of Dark Souls, and really got to playing it, I found many, -many- of the things that I loved about SotN were there. Level structure (Dark Souls is very much a ‘Metroidvania in terms of world and connection to areas, as well as the tone), moonlight gardens, enemy designs, sense of place and atmosphere.

Lusi’s right though. The old game creators are gone, and the landscape left in their wake is a strange one, dominated currently by PC-developers who only came to care about console markets when they saw the promise of riches. I feel like the past few years have thinned those riches, and may see a cleansing of many of the ‘me too’ studios.

My definition of long periods is anything longer than an hour, save for Fridays when I can manage several hours of play.

I appreciate the offer. For now I’m going to get my feel for how to do this sort of game and determine whether or not I’m willing to long-term it. I did play a bit with my real life friend who’s very experienced in MMOs and had a great deal of trouble keeping pace with him.

I am not sure what you mean by not being able to play for ‘long periods of time’, but the longest you can expect to spend in a dungeon is probably around an hour. Usually, it will take much less than that. CT runs (raid content) typically take me around 30-45 minutes, whereas I am done with some dungeons in 15-30minutes at most. Guildhests take less than 5 minutes, usually.

If, after you have played a bit, you decide to stick around, and if you have not found a community on Malboro where you want to play, consider creating a character on Sargatanas and I’ll get you into my Free Company. There, you’ll find people with whom you can level, quest, and get advice. My associates there are a fountain of information, and are very friendly and helpful besides.

I’ve just gotten out of Ul’dah (which reminded me a lot of my days in Tucson back in the early 00s), and right now I’m reeling from how lovely Gridania and Limsa are. Limsa especially strikes me as a strange mixture of the Greek island Santorini, and Disneyworld. Splendidly beautiful. And so many little details that bring everything to life.

So far I’ve been able to do everything alone, which I am best suited for. Even if there comes some wall I can’t pass, I will still have considered this a worthy purchase.

You can easily get endgame content done. It took me an afternoon at L.50 to get my relic weapon, and I had a Zenith (Relic +1) by that evening.

It took me two days of play (keep in mind this is not all-day play; I work a lot) to get myself geared to iLvl 84, at which point I was *well* above the expectations needed for the highest level content, Coil of Bahamut. In fact, I did so well on my first run there that the group with whom I went (I was filling in for one of their missing members) asked me to join them permanently, so I now have a weekly static group for Coil of Bahamut.

All of the content is now available in Duty Finder, whether it is main quest, side quest, guildhests, dungeons, or raids, and the party finder fills out for things like FATE and Atma groups. This is why I said on the podcast that FFXIV is finally better than WoW. I can do everything I want, and I can do so in a beautiful, immersive game, where the mechanics are fun and the people are far more pleasant on the whole.

Also, if you liked FF12 you’ll find a lot to like here (as you mentioned above), and this game is pretty serviceable as a single player experience. You’ll have a tough time getting some of the endgame content done alone (as in, you can’t) but if you just want to get to level 50 and enjoy the story quests and some side quests, solo is very doable.

Nonetheless, my character name is Eve Forsaidh, and I’m apparently on the Marlboro server. I have no idea how friends lists work, so if you send a request my way forgive me if I’m late to friending you back (or whatever they call that sort of thing in MMOs).

It is a very, very beautiful game. And far bigger than anything I’ve ever played.

Keep in mind that you’ll continue to have the info blast require admin approval as long as it contains two links or more (its just a spam protection thing here).

Btw, what syntax should I be using to embed links? That would drastically improve the Info Blast, but the last time I tried to use the HTML from the bottom of the comment box it failed miserably.

The people who work there are very nice I’m sure, but the content leaves more than a little to be desired.

@DA: I simply assumed that, like most Civ V players, you spent every waking moment playing it!

AND we don’t necessarily have all of our games installed. You can see why it becomes annoying to coordinate.

Anyways, I can update tomorrow or hold off on the Civ Finale until next week if anyone has any preferences.